Prologue and Chapter 1: Adventure: The Antidote to Stress
Welcome to the Fall 2013 White Heart book discussion! I am so thrilled that you have decided to join me! I think that you will fall in love with Madeleine and her incredible story! So let's jump right in to the prologue and Chapter 1!
Immediately you are seeing Madeleine in full character – loyal, passionate, a fighter. This whole book is about her story of establishing her trading post and then fifteen years later watching it get destroyed. What a life, eh?Chapter One introduces us to the Court of Versailles, Madeleine’s childhood home. By the time she was fifteen, she “lived like a mouse in a palace of cats.” Have you ever felt like that?Madeleine’s father was the royal carver, a documented fact, and as such she was very much in the midst of the artificiality of court life. Would you have liked to live in a royal court?Madeleine did not like the superficiality and pretension of the Sun King’s Court. She said that she found release when thinking about the new world, and imagining herself in Canada, or New France as the French colony around Quebec was called in 1670. To help herself relax, and to escape at least in her imagination, she read reports from the Jesuit priests about this strange wilderness across the Atlantic.I share Madeleine's love of imagination and daydreaming. Reading has always been a way of escaping the demands of the life around me. My passion for reading, particularly about other places and other times, is what motivated me to write White Heart. I loved immersing myself in Madeleine's story. I went to great lengths to experience the same sights, sounds and smells as she would have. To develop the word-pictures of the cliffs, the whales, and the sandpipers along the St. Lawrence River, I traveled a good portion of the Ontario and Quebec provinces. Watching the sandpipers divide over me as I kayaked under them was an unforgettable sight. It will be a memory that will be captured in my mind for years to come!When you feel trapped or stressed what do you do for relief? Do you daydream like Madeleine and I? Or do you have other things that quiet your heart? What is it that allows you a retreat from the demands of this world? My hope is that White Heart can offer you a great escape for this short time.
Author’s Tidbit:
The prologue originally was placed in chronological order towards the end of the book. One of the Barnes and Nobles managers, Bill Evans, read an early edition and suggested this placement at the beginning. He recommended this as an eye-catcher. I loved his idea. What do you think of jumping into the end of the story at the beginning?
Up Next: Wednesday's blog on Chapter 2!
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